QuickDesk: Launch Android widgets from any app

One of the quirky things about Google Android is that in order to switch applications or interact with a Home Screen widget, you have to tap the home button to leave the current app and then press another button to launch the widget, app, or other item you’re looking for. When you’re done, you have to navigate all the way back to whatever you were doing before.

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For instance, say you’re reading an eBook and you suddenly remember that you wanted to turn off the WiFi. You’d hit the home button, navigate to the area where you have a power widget, turn off the WiFi, and then go and open your eBook reader again from the program menu or list of recent applications.

QuickDesk saves you most of those steps, by giving you a virtual home screen that you can open from any app by double-tapping your home button. When you’re dong interacting with QuickDesk, just tap the back button and you go back to the app you were using.

Anything you can add to the default home screen, you can add to QuickDesk, including widgets, folders, and shortcuts.

QuickDesk Beta is available as a free download from the Android Market. Once you’ve installed it, you’ll probably want to set QuickDesktop as the default home app — and then open the configure menu in QuickDesk and set “default home” back to the default launcher or another home app. This will allow you to tap the home button twice to bring up QuickDesk, or once to bring up your old default.